Balmar SG-200 Battery Monitor

[TaylorO]

So I have to buy additional hardware and software to make the Balmar SG 200 function as advertised when I purchased it? Hmmm.., that doesn’t sound right.
Cheers,
Taylor

[Cat36Mahalo]

You can probably send it to them for a SW upgrade. Hopefully Chris or other balmar employee will respond with the procedure and cost of you don’t want to purchase the Bluetooth dongle.

[Wood]

As of right now the APP release is v1 - build 47. For me it is pretty buggy. My config is:

FLA
470AH
14.6V
7A
1.3

Started at 100% SOC coming off shore power 6AM & 90% SOH. SOH has fluctuated between 90 - 100% all season. I did a down and dirty load test last spring - the battery is really around 80% SOH.

The only alert I had set was LV @ 12V.

Around noon I used the microwave - ~ 115amp draw 3 min. Display threw a LV Alert -11.93V and would not clear. Display was unresponsive and APP would not connect. Had to unplug display from shunt to reset.

A few hours later initiated APP and it was not synched with what display had been reading. APP configuration data was blank.. Rebooted phone. No change.

Display *seemed* to be functioning as all menu items works. I reset the device. When it came up I had lost display configuration and SOH was now --------%

Also - SOC dropped from 84% to 71% on reset. So, the display was not reading correct information. And because the device appeared to be working properly you would not know this without a hard reset.

Initiated APP and it connected and appeared to be synched. Closed APP and when reopened it was showing bad data again and config data was blank. Reset this time by unplugging display from shunt.

I reviewed faults. No fault screens had been displayed. But a high current fault was listed from when I used the microwave.

Reconnected shore power 6PM and started charging ~ +120amp. Device recorded this as a fault also but did not throw a fault screen.

Within 15 minutes device was showing +20a 14.1v. Checked with APP. APP locked up again. Clamped battery negative and showed ~30a,

Hard reset the device and then showed 35a 14.1v.


Maybe the next build will be better.

[witzgall]

You found a bug that had not appeared before release involving alerts. We should have a fix shortly.

We have seen that sometime when the app loses connection to the gateway (BT range or interference, not something we directly control) the app does not immediately recognize this. If yo simply kill the app and restart, it should solve the problem with the displayed information not updating. Of course if we can find a way to make the app more responsive in that regard, we will.

I assume you applied the updates available from the app. A new set of updates will be available soon. I imagine as we gather feedback from a much wider group of users, the updates will happen frequently for a bit of time.

Chris

Originally Posted by Wood

As of right now the APP release is v1 - build 47. For me it is pretty buggy. My config is:

FLA
470AH
14.6V
7A
1.3

Started at 100% SOC coming off shore power 6AM & 90% SOH. SOH has fluctuated between 90 - 100% all season. I did a down and dirty load test last spring - the battery is really around 80% SOH.

The only alert I had set was LV @ 12V.

Around noon I used the microwave - ~ 115amp draw 3 min. Display threw a LV Alert -11.93V and would not clear. Display was unresponsive and APP would not connect. Had to unplug display from shunt to reset.

A few hours later initiated APP and it was not synched with what display had been reading. APP configuration data was blank.. Rebooted phone. No change.

Display *seemed* to be functioning as all menu items works. I reset the device. When it came up I had lost display configuration and SOH was now --------%

Also - SOC dropped from 84% to 71% on reset. So, the display was not reading correct information. And because the device appeared to be working properly you would not know this without a hard reset.

Initiated APP and it connected and appeared to be synched. Closed APP and when reopened it was showing bad data again and config data was blank. Reset this time by unplugging display from shunt.

I reviewed faults. No fault screens had been displayed. But a high current fault was listed from when I used the microwave.

Reconnected shore power 6PM and started charging ~ +120amp. Device recorded this as a fault also but did not throw a fault screen.

Within 15 minutes device was showing +20a 14.1v. Checked with APP. APP locked up again. Clamped battery negative and showed ~30a,

Hard reset the device and then showed 35a 14.1v.


Maybe the next build will be better.

[Delfin]

Downloaded the app for Android, and unlike the test app version, this one installed the desktop icon. However, while the phone can see the device it cannot connect via Bluetooth. Tried restarting the network, re-booting phone, etc. Lacking any documentation, hard to know what to do next.

[witzgall]

Delfin,

Since you were one of our testers, you have a gateway with earlier firmware. There were versions that had difficulty connecting. Once you connect and get the firmware updated to the released version, it will work much more smoothly. If you like, give me a call when you are in port, and we can try and get it sorted out.

Chris

Originally Posted by Delfin

Downloaded the app for Android, and unlike the test app version, this one installed the desktop icon. However, while the phone can see the device it cannot connect via Bluetooth. Tried restarting the network, re-booting phone, etc. Lacking any documentation, hard to know what to do next.

[Wood]

Originally Posted by witzgall

You found a bug that had not appeared before release involving alerts. We should have a fix shortly.

We have seen that sometime when the app loses connection to the gateway (BT range or interference, not something we directly control) the app does not immediately recognize this. If yo simply kill the app and restart, it should solve the problem with the displayed information not updating. Of course if we can find a way to make the app more responsive in that regard, we will.

I assume you applied the updates available from the app. A new set of updates will be available soon. I imagine as we gather feedback from a much wider group of users, the updates will happen frequently for a bit of time.

Chris

I reverted to test version build 45 until the revision appeared on Google Play a couple of days ago - v1.0.2 build 49. I installed that and updated the firmware. I reconfigured the alerts as previous.



I drew the bank down to 80% under ordinary house load < 20 amps. At that point I used the microwave -110amps which dropped the voltage to 11.88. There was no alert screen.


I checked history and the draw was accurately recorded. I confirmed the low voltage alert setting was 12v.


I tried the microwave again for longer time - 3 min. Voltage again ~ 11.8. No alert was triggered.

[witzgall]

All,

We have put up a new webpage listing the App/Firmware versions here:

SG200 Upgrades | Balmar


Chris

[TaylorO]

Chris,
Not sure what to do next. My SG-200 is close to useless other than telling me the amp draw. Even the battery SOC will go from 60% to 100% in 30 minutes or sometimes less. The SOH is all over the board. I have 6 New Battleborn 100 ah GC-2’s, 1,050 W of solar, and an Air X wind generator. When I received it, the box did not really look brand new. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Taylor
SV Cat Tales

[witzgall]

Taylor,

If you contact our technical support, we can help you with your issues. A first step would be to upgrade the firmware in your devices, if you haven't already done so.

Chris

Originally Posted by TaylorO

Chris,
Not sure what to do next. My SG-200 is close to useless other than telling me the amp draw. Even the battery SOC will go from 60% to 100% in 30 minutes or sometimes less. The SOH is all over the board. I have 6 New Battleborn 100 ah GC-2’s, 1,050 W of solar, and an Air X wind generator. When I received it, the box did not really look brand new. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Taylor
SV Cat Tales

[TaylorO]

Chris,
Would you happen to have a contact’s email?
Thanks,
Taylor

[witzgall]

Oops, sorry, Meant to include this: Contact Technical Support | Balmar

Chris

Originally Posted by TaylorO

Chris,
Would you happen to have a contact’s email?
Thanks,
Taylor

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by TaylorO

6 New Battleborn 100 ah GC-2’s

All six in parallel in one 12V bank?

Or series'd to get a higher voltage?

Which of these patterns for the parallel connections? http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

What are your highest C-rates, both charging and discharging?

[witzgall]

All,

We have released a new app that is now available on both the Google Play store and the Apple store.

If after installing, please upgrade the BT Gateway first. Depending on your phone and OS version, you may have issues connecting or performing upgrades to the Color Display or SmartShunt, due to persistent Bluetooth Cache. If you have issues, the cache can usually be cleared by turning off bluetooth, waiting 10 seconds, and then turning it back on. If that does not work, just restart your device (Phone or tablet.)

Finally, in some circumstances you many not see all of the your devices listed after upgrading. If so, simply pull power (Fuse) from the system and then reinstall.

Here are the basic release notes for the update:

New Features:
1. Ability to rename devices, visible on both the App and the Color Display.
2. When multiple devices of the same type are on the network, and they have different names, they can now be updated in turn while remaining in-place on the SmartLink network.
3. Improved display of the Firmware upgrade process using two progress bars.
Fixes:
1. Preventing a situation where if the chemistry upgrade process were interrupted, device memory could become corrupted.
2. Prevents false voltage faults when upgrading firmware with 24, 48v bank voltages.
3. General network reliability and connectivity improvements
4. Removed voltage faults on Auxiliary voltage leads.
5. The app now prohibits device screen lock while an upgrade is in progress.

Chris

[john61ct]

Kewl!

Is "SmartLink" a proprietary network for just SG200 related devices, or something that can be integrated to open protocols like Logging NMEA 2000, N2K, signalK, tc like Victron's FOSS efforts?

Also, would it be possible for your SmartShunts to totalize Ah at specific inputs or load circuit points, or are they designed for bank monitoring only for SoC?